Link up top: Unsustainable Population Growth Is The Elephant In The Room This is a great article, don't miss it. It explains that overshoot always leads to degradation of the environment which lowers the carrying capacity to a point much lower than it was before the overshoot.

Populations in serious overshoot always decline. This is seen in wine vats when the yeast cells die after consuming all the sugar from the grapes and bathing themselves in their own poisonous alcoholic wastes. It's seen in predator-prey relations in the animal world, where the depletion of the prey species results in a die-back of the predators. Actually, it's a bit worse than that. The population may actually fall to a lower level than was sustainable before the overshoot. The reason is that unsustainable consumption while in overshoot allowed the species to use more non-renewable resources and to further poison their environment with excessive wastes.

Ron P.

HALF TRUTHS...ALMOST

From above: "...the congressional pipeline supporters who has received campaign contributions from the oil industry (which stands to make billions if approval is granted)." In reality only a very small number of US companies will profit from the pipeline. The great majority of US oil companies, especially those in the Gulf Coast, will lose $billions of income if the pipeline is built as the influx of Canadian oil drives down domestic oil prices. It's the pipeline company and the refiners who want the line...not US oil companies. Makes sense once you remeber there is no "oil industry" per se. There are pipeline companies, exploration/production companies and refinery/product marketing companies. They have different objective and motives.

Recently the U.S. unemployment rate is put at 8,5%. Is that figure just election propaganda making ?

Concerning New York fracking articles uptop:

Hydrofracking New York: Energy Independence

Re: Wind-power: inordinately expensive and ineffective at cutting CO2 emissions, up top:

Vestas cuts 3,000 jobs

Fossil fuels deplete and can have wild price spikes; wind does not. CO2 emissions are not the only reason for wind power. Wind is supplemental, the back up facilities mostly already exist.

Despite building hundreds of turbines in Iowa, no new back up facilities have been constructed as far as I know. Iowa now produces about 20% of its electricity from wind.

I think Nigeria may become the Libya of 2012. Several big things seem to be going on. First there is the "Boko Haram" group stirring things up in the north. Second: the riots from the fuel price increase. Finally, MEND seems to be quiet for the time being but perhaps they may decide to wake up amidst the other crises to resume their activities. Disruptions in Nigeria would affect the US a lot more than Libya did.

Assassinating Iran's nuclear program.

Guess who?

I want to thank leanan for posting links to the ongoing discussion of Arctic methane over at RealClimate.

The latest post presents a program for graphing methane accumulations under various scenarios. Unfortunately, it is not possible to graph on it the most likely (and scariest) scenario whereby methane emissions from land and sea in the Arctic increase exponentially (because of feedback) until essentially all the carbon from those areas have been released into the atmosphere.

This is a good example of how the assumptions that go into constructing a model can limit the efficacy of the results.

Saudi Arabian Oil Production near limit

http://www.emirates247.com/business/energy/saudi-oil-output-near-capacit...

This newspaper is owned by a member of the Dubai Royal Family.

Alan

Better stock up now. Fortunately, Twinkies last forever.

Twinkie-maker Hostess files for bankruptcy
The maker of Twinkies, the well-known cream filled sponge cake, files for bankruptcy protection in the US, citing the economic downturn.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16514426

A military coup might soon occur in Pakistan as the civilian government tries to assert its authority and the military fights back: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/11/pm-sacks-secretary-defence.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pak-in-turmoil-Army-ch...

Axion sees future in lead-acid-carbon hybrid battery

... The PbC battery is a combination of conventional lead-acid battery lead-dioxide positive electrode with a proprietary activated-carbon supercapacitor-like negative electrode.

According to reports, Axion has been able to improve the durability and charge rate while reducing weight over the typical lead battery by 30 percent. One advantage that Axion points to is the battery’s fast rate of charge--minutes or even seconds depending on the application. Another advantage the company points to is that its PbC batteries are fully recyclable and a fraction of the cost of non-recyclable chemistries.

OU researchers to test 'quad porosity simulation' model for shale gas reservoirs

... One of the key developments of the research team over the last year is predicting the phase behavior of gas condensates in nanopores. As development activity, spurred by low gas prices, is focusing on the liquids-rich regions of shale gas plays, a concern of immediate significance is how to model gas condensates in nanopores. In conventional reservoirs, at low pressures, a phenomenon called condensate dropout occurs, which restricts the available pore space for gas to flow, thereby impairing well performance.

The OU research team has been able to show that in very small organic and inorganic nanopores, the influence of pore walls on fluid behavior is such that gas condensates tend to behave as dry or wet gases leading to a considerable decrease in condensate dropout. This development further explains the prolific production of rich gas-condensate fluids from these extremely tight reservoirs while conventional knowledge tends to indicate higher well productivity impairment.

also http://shale.ou.edu/

The path less traveled: Research is driving solutions to improve unpaved roads

"One of the problems with unpaved roads is that they are made from loose granular soils with particles that are not bound to each other on the road surface," Smith said. "This limits the speed of vehicles and often generates a lot of dust, denigrating the quality of the road."

But possible solutions could come from lignin, a biomass product that is present in all plants, including wheat straw, sugar cane and corn stover. Lignin is a waste product from other industries, including the production of biofuel and paper. These industries take plant mass and use the process of hydrolysis to separate useful materials, including cellulose and hemicellulose, from lignin.

Several properties make lignin a valuable material. It is adhesive when it becomes moist, making it good for binding soil particles together and providing cohesion. As a result, lignin works very well on unpaved roads by providing better support for vehicles and protecting the road from erosion.

Plants at risk from seed dispersal threats

Drivers of biodiversity loss, such as habitat fragmentation and climate change, are threatening seed dispersal around the globe, a study has warned.

Scientists said plant species that were unable to adapt were being driven "to the brink of extinction in most human-modified landscapes".

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020343690457715297409824198...

More efficient, smaller crew 757's on the trans-Atlantic routes can't always make it all the way to their intended destinations, and are forced to re-fuel mid-way. Another adaptation to high fuel costs and reduced passenger volumes: the end of the non-stop flight.

There's a climate change angle here to, maybe? The industry is citing unusual strength of the head winds over the Atlantic.

A friend of mine who works for the City of Summerside, PEI tells me that the City's promotion of ETS (Electric Thermal Storage) heating systems is going well.

See: http://annonces.transcontinentalmedia.com/pdf/10JP/5385393.pdf (PDF format)

The ETS heaters that are being installed are linked to the city's municipal utility by way of a two-way fibre-optic network and can be recharged whenever excess wind energy is available, day or night. The City generates much of its electricity internally at its own wind farm and purchases additional power from a neighbouring wind producer under long-term contract. Unfortunately, there are times when the supply of wind energy exceeds demand and in the past this meant it had to be sold at below cost to other utilities, and so this is where these ETS heaters come into play. Now, this excess energy can be sold to local residents and businesses for space heating purposes, at 8-cents per kWh, a rate that's locked-in for five years. That's roughly the equivalent of fuel oil priced at 70-cents a litre (82% AFUE), or about one-third less than the going rate.

With this in place, the City can continue to add additional wind capacity to its system without incurring a financial penalty. Secondly, local residents can heat their homes and businesses at a reduced cost and keep their dollars within the local economy as opposed to exporting them overseas (profits generated by the municipal utility support local services). It also helps reduce the province's dependence upon foreign energy and it's exposure to price volatility (some 90 per cent of homes in the province are heated by oil). And, of course, it reduces the province's CO₂ emissions and makes for a cleaner, healthier environment.

Cheers,
Paul

Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending January 6, 2012

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 14.9 million barrels per day during the week ending January 6, 181 thousand barrels per day above the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 85.6 percent of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 8.7 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging about 4.8 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 9.9 million barrels per day last week, up by 883 thousand barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged about 8.9 million barrels per day, 152 thousand barrels per day above the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 444 thousand barrels per day. Distillate fuel imports averaged 163 thousand barrels per day last week.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 5.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 334.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 3.6 million barrels last week and are above the upper limit of the average range. Both finished gasoline inventories and blending components inventories increased last week. Distillate fuel inventories increased by 4.0 million barrels last week and are in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 0.9 million barrels last week and are in the upper limit of the average range. Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 9.4 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period have averaged 18.4 million barrels per day, down by 6.5 percent compared to the similar period last year. Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied has averaged 8.6 million barrels per day, down by 4.8 percent from the same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied has averaged about 3.8 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, down by 2.2 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied is 1.4 percent lower over the last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last year.

Rethinking the Growth Imperative

Cambridge, United Kingdom - Modern macroeconomics often seems to treat rapid and stable economic growth as the be-all and end-all of policy. That message is echoed in political debates, central-bank boardrooms and front-page headlines. But does it really make sense to take growth as the main social objective in perpetuity, as economics textbooks implicitly assume?

... There is a certain absurdity to the obsession with maximising long-term average income growth in perpetuity, to the neglect of other risks and considerations. Consider a simple thought experiment. Imagine that per capita national income (or some broader measure of welfare) is set to rise by one per cent per year over the next couple of centuries. This is roughly the trend per capita growth rate in the advanced world in recent years. With annual income growth of one per cent, a generation born 70 years from now will enjoy roughly double today's average income. Over two centuries, income will grow eight-fold.

Now suppose that we lived in a much faster-growing economy, with per capita income rising at two per cent annually. In that case, per capita income would double after only 35 years, and an eight-fold increase would take only a century.

Finally, ask yourself how much you really care if it takes 100, 200 or even 1,000 years for welfare to increase eight-fold. Wouldn't it make more sense to worry about the long-term sustainability and durability of global growth? Wouldn't it make more sense to worry whether conflict or global warming might produce a catastrophe that derails society for centuries or more?

Leaked document reveals Rio+20 sustainable development goals

According to a leak of the draft agenda document seen by the Guardian, they will also be asked to negotiate a new agreement to protect oceans, approve an annual state of the planet report, set up a major world agency for the environment, and appoint a global "ombudsperson", or high commissioner, for future generations.

Although the agenda could change in the next six months, it looks likely they will be asked to pledge to use stretched resources better and reform the subsidy system of fossil fuels which encourages climate change.

Rio+20 Earth summit draft agenda

Super Fracking Goes Deeper to Pump Up Natural Gas Production

As regulators and environmentalists study whether hydraulic fracturing can damage the environment, industry scientists are studying ways to create longer, deeper cracks in the earth to release more oil and natural gas.

Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) has set its sights on “super cracks,” a method of blasting deeper into dense rock to create wider channels in order to funnel more oil and gas. The aim for the technology, branded “DirectConnect,” is to concentrate fracking power to target oil or gas buried deeper in the formation.

Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB) has developed its own version of a super crack after six years of research. Called HiWay, it injects material to prop open wider pathways for the oil and gas to flow. The number of companies using HiWay in North America has grown from two a year ago to more than 20, the company said in October. Initial production at a well in the Barnett Shale was “significantly higher” with the technology ...

“If critics already think fracking is bad, theoretically, super fracking would be super bad,” Sherr said

Steeper decline curves?

Shell Oil Company President Addresses Nexus of Water, Food, Energy With Texas Top Scientists

... "The challenge of our time is to secure a more sustainable future," said Odum. "At Shell, we are taking an especially close look at the nexus between water, food and energy. All three are dependent on each other for production, and all three are becoming increasingly scarce," he said. "The TAMEST conference will provide an important opportunity for key stakeholders to engage on this critical topic and discuss new and innovative ways to optimize Energy for Life."

From their 2011 Presentations: http://www.tamest.org/events/2011_energy_summit_presentations.html

Example: Stephen S. Roop, Ph.D - Options for Freight and High-Speed Rail: Electrifying Freight Transport
Texas Energy Policy: A Regulatory Perspective, etc.

A Pipeline of Oil Dollars Flowing to Members of Congress Pushing Keystone XL Decision

A new analysis of two years of campaign contributions to House members conducted by the non-partisan research group MapLight shows a strong correlation between money flowing to Congress and House votes in favor of pushing a decision on Keystone XL.

In total, American oil and gas industry lobbyists have spent nearly $12 million in campaign contributions to both Republicans and Democrats since 2009, when the Keystone XL building permit was originally filed.

Of the 195 representatives who list oil and gas lobbyists in their top-20 campaign contributions, 185 voted for a bill in July that would have expedited the approval and construction of Keystone XL. That bill eventually died in the Senate. However, in December, the House passed an extension of the payroll tax cut that included a mandatory executive decision on the pipeline by February.

•In total, Representatives who voted for the pipeline have received $10,922,161 from the oil and gas industry while those who voted against the pipeline have received only $717,552. In other words, those that voted for the pipeline have received 15 times more money from the oil and gas industry.

•Maplight’s data also shows that the oil and gas industry has contributed more than ten times as much to members of Congress as environmental interests have. This is worth noting in particular because Maplight’s presentation referenced “high-contributing environmental groups” without this important piece of context.

So when American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard threatened “huge political consequences” if Keystone XL isn’t approved, he meant it.

Does anyone know how many rigs are running in Ecuador ?

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Energy Wars 2012

Over the last decade, this country has been so strikingly militarized that no one can imagine 10 years of serious government planning or investment not connected to the military or the national security state. It’s a dangerous world out there -- so we’re regularly told by officials who don’t mention that no military is built to handle the scariest things around.

So when the U.S. faces a problem in the world -- say, keeping the energy flowing on this planet -- the first thing that’s done is to militarize the problem. It’s the only way Washington now knows how to think.

Danger Waters: The Three Top Hot Spots of Potential Conflict in the Geo-Energy Era

Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy “chokepoint” could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch -- the Geo-Energy Era -- in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs. In 2012 and beyond, energy and conflict will be bound ever more tightly together, lending increasing importance to the key geographical flashpoints in our resource-constrained world.

Child leukaemia doubles near French nuclear plants-study

The study, conducted by the French health research body INSERM, found that between 2002 and 2007, 14 children under the age of 15 living in a 5-kilometre radius of France's 19 nuclear power plants had been diagnosed with leukaemia.

This is double the rate of the rest of the country, where a total of 2,753 cases were diagnosed in the same period.

Bumper 2011 Grain Harvest Fails to Rebuild Global Stocks

The world’s farmers produced more grain in 2011 than ever before. Estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show the global grain harvest coming in at 2,295 million tons, up 53 million tons from the previous record in 2009. Consumption grew by 90 million tons over the same period to 2,280 million tons. Yet with global grain production actually falling short of consumption in 7 of the past 12 years, stocks remain worryingly low, leaving the world vulnerable to food price shocks.

Carryover grain stocks—the amount left in the world’s grain elevators when the new harvest begins—now stand at 469 million tons, enough to cover 75 days of consumption at current levels.

China imported a net 5 million tons of grain in 2011, the most significant inflow since the country declared a national grain self-sufficiency policy in the mid-1990s. Though still a tiny fraction of the country’s 451-million-ton consumption, the potential for China to import increasing amounts of grain is a concern to those who watch grain markets and prices. China’s grain imports would be far higher had it not ratcheted up imports of another key field crop, the soybean. Climbing from almost nothing through the mid-1990s, China’s soybean imports hit 56 million tons in 2011, close to 80 percent of the country’s total soybean consumption and nearly 60 percent of all the soy traded internationally. Most of the high-protein soy is used in livestock and poultry feed.

I find the cause for Whipple's gasoline price forecast for 2012 posted atop somewhat astonishing given the recent levels of US gasoline exports:

We also have a looming refinery problem in the U.S. and Europe coming up this summer. As demand for gasoline has dropped, refining has become less profitable, causing refiners to shutter or if possible sell some of their less-profitable refineries -- some 2.6 million barrels a day (b/d) of refining capacity has been closed in the advanced economies. In Europe, the continent's largest independent refiner is shutting down three refineries halting about 250,000 b/d of refining. In the northeastern U.S. however, the situation is much worse. Three large Pennsylvania refineries, which can refine 550,000 b/d and which constitute half the refining capacity on the East coast, are for sale. Two have already been shut down and the third is due for closure if a buyer cannot be found. While this loss of US refining capacity can be made up by increased shipments of refined products from Europe and the Gulf Coast, there will likely be added costs and delays that could result in shortages and higher prices.

I long ago noted the problem the USA faces by not having a national oil company as the IOCs are under no obligation to produce anything for the US market, particularly if no profits are to be made. IIRC, even when gas was over $4 refineries were closing or curtailing production because of poor profit margins. Will refined products ever be priced to enable refiners to continue to produce or is something in play that not allowing for that sort of an adjustment?

Military Leaders Urge Action on Energy Security to Counter Iran's Sustained Efforts to Rattle Oil Markets

Members of Securing America's Future Energy's (SAFE) Energy Security Leadership Council (ESLC) today said that Iran is likely to continue actions aimed at keeping oil prices at elevated levels in 2012, and urged action on a broad set of energy security policies designed to combat the threats posed by America's dangerous and ongoing dependence on petroleum.

"We are in a situation that is full of dangers and absurdity," said Admiral Dennis Blair. "The U.S., which gets no oil from Iran, carries the burden of breaking any blockade that the Iranians may impose and U.S. consumers will pay higher prices for oil. We need to reduce this trend. We need to drill for more oil in our waters, draw every drop of efficiency from our vehicles, and over the long-term, we need to transition our heavy-duty vehicle fleet to natural gas and our light-duty fleet to electricity."

I've wondered why ASPO-USA doesn't leverage some of this energy crisis news to get a little PR out about PO.

Greeks reclaim the land to ease the pain of economic austerity

A group of community-minded gardeners have turned a former Athens airport into a blooming vegetable plot, showing how Greece's eroded soil holds the keys to a revival in farming and a way to buck the jobless trend

Northeastern states will likely depend more on our refineries in 2012

Northeastern states are slated to lose half of their regional capacity for fuel production by midyear as financial woes push refineries there to idle, a trend likely to increase their dependency on Gulf Coast supply.

... the shutdown of production at two major Pennsylvania refineries last year and potential closure of a third could put the region in a precarious position and stress supplies of gasoline, jet fuel and heating oil, the agency concluded in a new report.

The report noted that Northeastern states could experience "spot shortages with price hikes" for gasoline and other fuels as refineries discontinue operations.

A bigger concern for the Northeast is heating oil.

Demand for ultra-low-sulfur heating oil is expected to rise next fall, when regulations taking effect in New York will require use of the cleaner fuel in boilers that warm buildings. A limited number of refineries are equipped to produce it.

related http://www.eia.gov/analysis/petroleum/nerefiningactivity/

Kyodo News: Japan planning to reduce Iranian imports
http://english.kyodonews.jp/

An Oil Strategy in Case Iran’s Navy Shuts Down the Strait of Hormuz: View
Jan 11, 2012 7:14 PM ET

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-12/an-oil-strategy-in-case-iran-s-...

EIA world crude oil and lease condensate production from January 2000 to August 2011 with a rolling annual average. The data is from EIA International Energy Statistics on January 11, 2012.

Results of a chemistry-based study into the fate of oil from the Macondo Deepwater Horizon spill have been released. It concludes that the average daily release rate during the spill was 11,130 tons of gas and oil compounds a day, very close to the official estimate.

The visible surface slick represented about 15 percent of the total leaked gas and oil; the airborne plume accounted for about another 7 percent. About 36 percent remained in an underwater plume of droplets about 3,300-4,300 feet below the surface, and 17 percent was recovered directly at the surface through a marine riser. The location of the balance, about 25 percent of the total, was not directly accounted for by the chemical data.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/11/parents-furious-over-apparent-use...

They claim students are being locked in unsupervised “scream rooms,” where some children have harmed themselves, reports CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez.

Disturbing allegations have surfaced of teachers locking students in closet-sized concrete “scream rooms” for punishment.

And how is this a good idea?

Why I’m saving and investing for the disaster to come

The solution is extreme diversification – up to and including buying your own remote and defensible farmstead, complete with independent water supply, power generation capabilities, and the ability to feed your nearest and dearest until the smoke clears.

OK, I know that link is just to some dude's investment blog and it's more about how he's thinking things through. I'm fine with that, but I take issue with the idea that a small family unit can defend a home and farm.

They simply can't.

Even if the home and farm are in the most ideal location, you need a resilient community to make this work. Somewhere around 50 people, probably no more than 100. And they all have to be invested in community and work.

The ideal, resilient communities, purpose built, and diversified through various skill sets, can work through most anything thrown at them -- or at least stand a chance.

The lone-family-survivor meme is just that, a movie plot. Now put an extended "family" of 30-50 people on a few hundred acres and give them time to develop multiple food sources -- whole different ball game.

Militants bomb oil equipment yard in Iraq -sources

Gunmen wearing military uniforms bombed an equipment storage yard belonging to Angola's national oil company near an oilfield in northern Iraq, police sources said on Thursday.

Maine’s State Economist Clueless about the Economy

A recent newspaper article reported on the Maine State Economist’s gloomy outlook on the state’s economy. http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/maine-economist-curbs-his-enthusiasm_...

But if you are good at reading between the lines, you can easily see that the state’s economist is clueless about the real problem with the Maine economy. Because of the state’s current cars first approach to transportation, the 1.3 million people of Maine spend about $8 Billion per year on their highway based transportation system. But because Maine has no auto plants, no oil wells, and no refineries, for example, at least $6.5 Billion of this money leaves the state every year. Once these facts have sunk in, it should be easy to understand why Maine is considered to be one of the poor states.

It is also easy to understand why newspapers and TV stations never mention this problem. Newspapers typically get about 40% of all their revenue from auto advertising, and about one third of all TV commercials are for automobiles.

But I’m puzzled about why the state’s own economist appears to have no clue about this huge problem. Can anyone on TOD offer some useful insights about the state economist’s huge blind spot?

Nexen CEO fired because SAGD underdelivers and upgrader problems.

But Long Lake, hurt by operational problems, has fallen far short of production targets. The project was expected to churn out about 30,000 barrels of oil per day by the end of 2011, compared with a design capacity of about 72,000 barrels of oil per day, once promised to be met by the end of 2009. Nexen in early 2011 admitted the bitumen reservoir has watery patches that hamper production, and that it drilled its initial wells in some of the poorest sections of the property. Nexen has spent $4.5-billion on the project over a decade, but it’s over budget and has problems with the upgrader.

Technology sure sounds good though! (pdf)

The end result of this unique configuration of conventional and proprietary technologies is a superior crude oil produced at the Long Lake site, at the industry’s lowest operating costs.

As shale deposits multiply, energy self-sufficiency becomes a reality

This was a good day’s work. Good days of this kind are occurring more and more often. In the first two weeks of January, huge fossil fuel discoveries have been confirmed around the world – including in Brazil, India and Cyprus (where Houston-based Noble Energy confirmed a fifth large gas discovery). Cyprus declared that these finds would, by themselves, “make a substantial contribution to energy security in the EU.” With every good day’s work, the world moves a little closer to energy independence – for almost everyone.

It's a wonderful piece of cut-and-paste journalism!

How does Brad Delong phrase this problem... "Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?"

Not much is said here about how a country such as Japan can wind down as the national population falls, the world economy continues it's expected(here in this forum at least) down hill slide, and peak resources take an ever larger bite out of living standards.What is said here is almost invariably negative in terms of describing the future of Japan.

It seems to me that the Japanese have a well deserved reputation for cohesiveness and adaptability, and that their situation is not nearly so bleak as some picture it.

My expectation is that they will roll with the punches, learn to play by new rules, and do very well, considering their lack of indigenous mineral resources.

Now it does look as if it will be hard for them to pay for keeping up their big bulge of very old folks, but old folks consumption ios limited mostly to medical care-which is costly mostly because it requires so many highly trained professional people.When things get really tough, the medical professionals will just have to share the hardships with everybody else, and work for less money.

An elderly person consumes very little, except food, living space, and medical care.A funeral need not cost much at all.When he dies, a house or apartment becomes available.Japan, with a declining population, will need to construct very little housing-just enough to replace what is lost due to natural disaster or obsolence.The country will probably actually be able to abandon some older and less energy efficient housing, or poorly situated housing, every year before too long.

Let's look at a couple of representative examples of what the advantages of down sizing might be.

A sewer line, or a water line needs to be replaced every half century or so;but replacement, everything else equal, id far cheaper than building new, as right of way, permitting, surveying, etc, are already paid for. A water or sewer line serving FEWER people can be sleeved , reducing the diameter and capacity somewhat but sleeving is DIRT cheap compared to all new construction.

The furthest out small tentacles of a highway system which must necessarily be well maintained in order to support the current population and life style can gradually be abandoned, or allowed to revert to gravel roads,likewise most of the electrical grid reaching out into far flung neighborhoods can eventually be cannibalized.

As the country gradually draws itself into a more compact form, existing mass transit can be utilized more efficiently, and new mass transit will be more practical.

Japan has the human and industrial capital to build out their own domestic renewable energy industries and deploy the products of these industries in a lavish fashion.

When the Japanese people make the decision to do so they will build out renewables in a hurry, and the energy thereby harvested will go farther by far, given a shrinking population than it would otherwise.

Furthermore, I believe they are politically savvy enough to make sure they don't make the mistake we Yankees have made-allowing our domestic industrial base to decay and the most of it to be moved overseas-which incidentally is the biggest and dumbest mistake we have ever made in the history of our country.

(At the rate we are going, if we ever have to fight the Chinese, we will have to try to swap them some coal and wheat for some munitions, because the too big to fail banks and fat cats can manage to move the mic itself overseas, and they will probably try to do so, unless we wise up soon.

The Chinese are going to be finished selling to us on credit pretty soon-Uncle Sam's checks are bouncing like superballs, but the reality of this truth is hidden for now by the electronic printing of giga bucks of funny money.)

There are those who will insist that the Japanese must have the jobs represented by their construction, retailing, and export industries to survive, but their education is limited to business and economics.Those of us who know a bit about biology understand that survival actually depends on food, water, and adequate shelter rather than jobs and money as such.

The Japanese will figure out how to keep the wheels greased and turning smoothly. Japanese wheels are not likely to fall off.

There is no real reason an existing unneeded office building could not be renovated into extremely energy efficient apartments, thereby allowing a shrinking population to shrink its physical footprint, reducing the need for transportation fuels, water and sewer infrastructure, and so forth.

As land is freed up by the eventual reduction of sprawl, local food production can rise significantly enough that in combination with a falling population, food imports can be significantly reduced.

Two large Toronto investment firms have quietly shed shares in Corridor Resources Inc. as the Halifax junior oil and gas company struggles to overcome a string of setbacks.

The selloff comes amid continued low natural gas prices, which have caused mounting losses for Corridor.

In the three months ending Sept. 30, 2011, the exploration company lost $2.3 million, compared to a loss of $1.7 million during the same period in 2010.

Cash flow also declined during that period — $1.6 million for the three months in 2011 versus $1.9 million the year before.

EPA: Power plants main global warming culprits

Power plants released 72 percent of the greenhouse gases reported to the Environmental Protection Agency for 2010, according to information released Wednesday that was the first catalog of global warming pollution by facility. The data include more than 6,700 of the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gases, or about 80 percent of total U.S. emissions...

The largest greenhouse gas polluter in the nation in 2010, according to the EPA's data, was the Scherer power plant in Juliette, Ga., owned by Southern Company. That coal-fired power plant reported releasing nearly 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, in 2010.

http://news.yahoo.com/epa-power-plants-main-global-warming-culprits-1821...

[India] Fuel crisis takes toll on Dang Cement Factories

Large scale cement factories that were planning to launch their products by Feb said fuel shortage has badly impacted their preparations, forcing them to postpone their plans. These industries have the capacity to substantially replace cement imports. Similarly, road expansion project in the district has also been affected.

The crisis has rendered thousands of daily wage workers jobless. Entrepreneurs, who were using fuel to supplement the electricity crisis, are now left with no option but to temporarily shut down the operation till the crisis gets over.

Honeybee deaths linked to seed insecticide exposure

Analyses of bees found dead in and around hives from several apiaries over two years in Indiana showed the presence of neonicotinoid insecticides, which are commonly used to coat corn and soybean seeds before planting. The research showed that those insecticides were present at high concentrations in waste talc that is exhausted from farm machinery during planting.

The insecticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam were also consistently found at low levels in soil - up to two years after treated seed was planted - on nearby dandelion flowers and in corn pollen gathered by the bees, according to the findings released in the journal PLoS One this month.

Krupke and Hunt received reports that bee deaths in 2010 and 2011 were occurring at planting time in hives near agricultural fields. ... "Given the rates of corn planting and talc usage, we are blowing large amounts of contaminated talc into the environment. The dust is quite light and appears to be quite mobile," Krupke said. ... the exhausted talc showed extremely high levels of the insecticides - up to about 700,000 times the lethal contact dose for a bee.

One-third of car fuel consumption is due to friction loss

No less than one third of a car's fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction, and this friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction by anything from 10% to 80% in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in USA. It should thus be possible to reduce car's fuel consumption and emissions by 18% within the next 5 to 10 years and up to 61% within 15 to 25 years.

Of the energy output of fuel in a car engine, 33% is spent in exhaust, 29% in cooling and 38% in mechanical energy, of which friction losses account for 33% and air resistance for 5%. By comparison, an electric car has only half the friction loss of that of a car with a conventional internal combustion engine.

Annual friction loss in an average car worldwide amounts to 11,860 MJ: of this, 35% is spent in overcoming rolling resistance in the wheels, 35% in the engine itself, 15% in the gearbox and 15% in braking. With current technology, only 21.5% of the energy output of the fuel is used to actually move the car; the rest is wasted.

Is the American dream fading?

With more people living on the breadline in the US, we ask if it is time to abandon the American dream.

I'm looking into Arctic methane as revealed by AIRS at present. There are some localised persistent anomalies and I'm wondering if they're due to oil/gas exploration (I think they're too big but wanted to cross this possibility off my list).

Take this video for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUmU1wX9QLc
The large original images are here:
ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/MAPS/NH/

Two examples -
1) In the Yukon, between 130 and 140 deg West.
2) East of the Lena river in Siberia, inland from the Arctic Ocean coast along the 130deg East line.

Does anyone know of oil/gas operations in these areas?

Thanks in anticipation.

The Age of Thirst in the American West

Coming to a theater near you: the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization

http://billtotten.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/the-age-of-thirst-in-the-amer...

The aptly named Lester Snow, a recent director of California’s Department of Water Resources, understood this. His future water planning assumed a forty percent decline in runoff from the Sierras, which feeds the California Aqueduct. None of his contemplated scenarios were happy ones. The Colorado River Aqueduct and the California Aqueduct make the urban conglomerations of southern California possible. If both fail at once, the result will be, as promised, the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization.

Only Patricia Mulroy has an endgame strategy for the demise of Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority is, even now, tunneling under the lake to install the equivalent of a bathtub drain at close to its lowest point. At a cost of more than $800 million, it will drain the dregs of Lake Mead for Las Vegas.

Admittedly, water quality will be a problem, as the dead pool will concentrate pollutants. The good news, according to the standard joke among those who chronicle Sin City’s improbable history, is that the hard-partying residents and over-stimulated tourists who sip from Lake Mead’s last waters will no longer need to purchase anti-depressants. They’ll get all the Zoloft and Xanax they need from their tap water.

I don't have a link handy, but I recall seeing a graphic that snow cover in the continental US is a fraction of what is normal for this time of year.

Cheers,
Jerry

Iran's 'distressed' oil to keep flowing - at deep discount

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Despite tightening sanctions on Iran's oil industry, experts say the country's crude should still flow -- but perhaps at a deep discount.

In fact, the bargaining has already begun, two analysts said.

China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, has sharply reduced its imports from Iran over the past two months.

But it hasn't been in sympathy with U.S. efforts to pressure Iran on its nuclear efforts. Rather, China believes it can negotiate a lower price.

"This isn't about Beijing trying to be a good actor," said Trevor Houser, a partner at the international economics research firm Rhodium Group. "The Chinese are trying to get a better price on what is now a distressed asset."

"Distressed asset"...how distressing :-/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxeKeuh_2Bw

Dr. Zawodny: “It has the demonstrated ability to produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation, without producing nasty waste.”

I await the debunking of NASA by posters like Darwinanian who in the past had expressed how Cold Fusion is 'bunk'.